Science 'n news bits: Religion & morality, etc.

The influence of religious moral beliefs on 

adolescents’ mental stability

A 2007 article in Psychriatria Danubina concludes:

A higher index of religious moral beliefs in adolescents enables better control of impulses, providing better mental health stability. It enables neurotic conflicts typical for adolescence to be more easily overcome. It also causes healthier reactions to external stimuli. A higher index of religious moral beliefs of young people provides a healthier and more efficient mechanism of anger control and aggression control. It enables transformation of that psychical energy into neutral energy which supports the growth and development of personality, which is expressed through socially acceptable behavior. In this way, it helps growth, development and socialization of the personality, leading to the improvement in mental health. .... For sample selection the measuring instruments were used to exclude any pathological/abnormal social, religious and moral profile of subjects

The data was obtained from people normal religion and moral teaching. Pathological or abnormal religious zealotry like what Christian nationalism teaches was excluded. Even normal religious teaching and practice instills distrust of non-believers because humans naturally tend to distrust or dislike people who are different in some way that is perceived as significant. This 2012 review article comments:

In a 2007 Gallup poll, most Americans said that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist to be president—they were more willing to vote for a Mormon, a Jew, or a homosexual. Another study found that people ranked atheists lower than Muslims, recent immigrants, and homosexuals in “sharing their vision of American society” and were least willing to allow their children to marry them.

That was 2007. A 2019 poll indicates that the situation changed and about 66% of adult Americans believe that religious and non-religious people are about equally trustworthy. Apparently, opinion has shifted quite a bit in the US in recent years. Interestingly, about 65% of atheists believe trust is about equal between the two groups. I bet that this opinion shift is what scares Christian nationalists into their zealotry, hysteria and hate about secularism.

Gun battles & the LGBQT community

This one is a head scratcher. NPR reports:

Oregon's LGBQT community worries that 

a new law will keep them from obtaining guns

Some of Oregon's trans and queer gun supporters are worried that a new state law will prevent them from buying firearms.

The law, Measure 114, grants county sheriffs and police chiefs discretion to determine who qualifies to purchase a firearm under a new permit-to-purchase program.

But Measure 114 lacks criteria clearly defining what disqualifies applicants, details on what makes someone a threat and what data can be used by law enforcement in making that decision. That's a problem for activists who have critiqued law enforcement, particularly in the racial justice protests that took place over the past two years.

“I just feel like if I was to go online and say like the police are terrorists or something ... [the police] would be like, ‘Well, you seem like you might not be fit for this community to be armed,’ ” says Mia Rose, a trans person of color and former licensed firearms dealer. “If they were to get that information that you got snatched up off the street [arrested during the Portland protests prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020], I would assume that the law would say they could deny your purchase, or deny your right to have a permit.”

 

Mia Rose with her custom-made

AR-15 assault rifle

Since most of law enforcement is more conservative than most of America, the concern that Ms. Rose articulates might be spot on. I smell a lawsuit coming.

From the money really does influence people files

ProPublica writes about how Leonard Leo tries and succeeds in influencing the Supreme Court:

Conservative Activist Poured Millions Into Groups Seeking to 

Influence Supreme Court on Elections and Discrimination

Newly obtained records show how Leonard Leo, an architect of the right-wing takeover of the courts, has been funding groups pushing to change elections and anti-discrimination laws.

 

The documents detail how Leo, who helped build the Supreme Court’s conservative majority as an adviser to President Donald Trump, has used a sprawling network of opaque nonprofits to fund groups advocating for ending affirmative action, rolling back anti-discrimination protections and allowing state legislatures unreviewable oversight of federal elections.

The money flowed mostly through so-called dark money groups, which don’t have to disclose their donors. They are required to reveal the recipients of their spending in their annual tax returns, which are released to the public, but often those are also dark money groups or other entities that have minimal disclosure rules.

The Supreme Court case involving a Colorado-based website designer who refuses to work for same-sex couples provides a window into Leo’s strategy.

At least six groups funded by Leo’s network have filed briefs supporting the suit, which seeks to overturn Colorado’s anti-discrimination law. The Ethics and Public Policy Center, which records show received $1.9 million from Leo’s network, submitted a brief supporting the web designer. So did Concerned Women for America, which has received at least $565,000 over the past two years from the Leo network, as well as an organization called the Becket Fund, which got $550,000 from a Leo group.  

Another case that Leo groups have sought to influence is Moore v. Harper, which could have sweeping implications for American democracy. The question posed in the case is whether the Constitution affords state legislatures the power to create rules for federal elections without state court oversight or intervention.

It is personally annoying when professional reporting keeps calling people like Leo conservative. By now it is clear that these radical right elites are not conservative like the old GOP used to be before Christian zealots and brass knuckles capitalists finally completed their takeover in 2008-2009. That was when the radical right fascists routed the last of the old GOP establishment. Those radicals turned the party into an enraged, authoritarian monster. It was and still is bitterly opposed to democracy, inconvenient truth, secularism, the rule of law, civil liberties and regulation, i.e., defense of the public interest.

The Supreme Court can howl at the top of its lungs that all the money sloshing around in the system does not corrupt or unduly influence it, including no influence on selection of federal judges or their decision-making. That is 100% baloney. It’s a lie, and an insulting one at that.